


Nine

by panchostokes (badwolfrun)



Series: Prompt Fics [93]
Category: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
Genre: Angst, Childhood Trauma, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Trauma Reveal, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:55:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25941721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badwolfrun/pseuds/panchostokes
Summary: Grissom finds out about Nick's past in a way he never expected to.
Relationships: Gil Grissom & Nick Stokes
Series: Prompt Fics [93]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1540795
Comments: 11
Kudos: 36





	Nine

**Author's Note:**

> HUGE WARNINGS for mentioned child abuse, graphic depictions of violence, some dark and detailed imagery and quite possibly a devastating blow to your heart.
> 
> Prompted by an anon on tumblr.

Grissom doesn’t make assumptions about his employees. Doesn’t make judgments outside of passing remarks, and that’s only when it pertains to their work under his supervision. What they do or have done on their own time, outside of his click, is their business and none of his. 

But their lives outside of work have a funny way of slipping through the cracks of the boundary that he expects to stand tall when they’re investigating a case. And most of the time, it does serve well enough in increasing their drive, their work ethic but sometimes, it blinds them. 

And sometimes, it hurts them.

It’s not an assumption so much so as it’s an observation, that Nick tends to lose his focus or perhaps rather,  _ hyper  _ focus when it comes to cases with young children.

To a point, they all do, and he’d be more worried if there was no reaction at all. 

He’s seen Nick punch door frames. Seen him storm through the lab’s halls while his co-workers race to catch up with him. Seen him walk out after experiencing “another day in paradise.” 

But he’s never seen him act like  _ this. _

Never seen him quite as exposed as  _ this. _

He wouldn’t know it at first, but the scene was so close to Nick that he might as well have made himself at home. 

A child’s bedroom, littered in animal themed magazines and various sports paraphernalia. A bookshelf decorated with models of cars, and tanks, and airplanes. A pile of books on a desk next to a small television with a gaming controller. 

A house eerily empty from its normal housing of a large family--smaller than Nick’s, this family had only six members and all but one was left behind during the night of the eldest child’s honoring for an award they achieved, which was a seemingly common occurrence in this upper middle class, influential family. 

It’s not until they climb the stairs, past the collage of photos of frozen, smiling, prideful faces that they see the bloodbath on the youngest child’s bed. 

And the blood covered boy in the corner of the room, hugging his knees to his chest. He’s dressing a one piece pair of pajamas, except it’s backwards--the back flap is facing forward. 

One of the buttons is undone. 

At first, it’s business as usual--well, as usual as a case like this can get. The boy refuses to leave the room. Refuses any attention. 

Any except Nick’s.

Nick is always great with kids, but this connection seems to go deeper than just a superficial friendliness. Grissom doesn’t know, can’t know what runs through both of their minds as the first thing Nick does when they enter the room is crouch down and re-attach the open button to the flap. Whispers something. Asks some questions. The boy nods and shakes his head in response, and Grissom does his best not to listen--or at least, not appear as if he’s listening, instead taking in the scene on the bed, a young woman, perhaps late teens or early adult years with a hole in her throat, and the weapon fallen on the floor.

Nick will later identify it as a piece used to make models. He used one himself all the time as a kid.

By the time Nick finally gets the kid up in his arms and ready to carry him out of this scene of horror, the parents arrive, and like any parent hearing the worst news, they rush through the barricade and into their house, but seem to hit an invisible wall and are trapped in the doorway.

The mother screams. The father gasps.

“Oh, for crying out loud, what did that little shit do now?” the father moans as the mother falls into . 

“What did you just call him?” Nick asks, rising up from the floor and stepping in front of the young child.

“How-could-he-do-this?” the mother sobs. 

Normally, Grissom would expect to see Nick drenched in empathy for the family, but all trace of that is gone. All that’s left is pure  _ disgust,  _ and a CSI that he no longer recognizes as one of his own. 

“YOU LEFT HIM!” Nick shouts, and Grissom immediately stands up, but his normal warning glance doesn’t settle the man, Nick snaps off his gloves--Grissom winces at the sound--makes a move towards the man with poised shoulders and flexing muscles, veins starting to pulse out of his neck as he continues to yell. “You left him here, all alone, with someone he was  _ supposed to trust _ and that trust was broken! What the fuck do you think was going to happen, huh?” 

“Listen, this kid has been nothing but trouble for our family since he was born--” the father begins in a harsh whisper, the only filter on his scrambled head being to lower the volume of his malicious words, and that’s seemingly only out of a self preservation that the “problem child” doesn’t spring up from the floor and murder him, too. 

While Grissom had flanked Nick, setting an arm on his shoulder to hold him back, he still doesn’t stop Nick from punching the father square in the face. 

A fight ensues, both men clawing at each other and falling into the hallway as more and more hands try to pry them apart before the crime scene becomes a double, and in the commotion, the mother had flew in, swooped up the boy and left the house--while risking contamination, Grissom can’t quite blame the woman for that. 

Instead he blames Nick, for somehow clocking in the world record for a mental breakdown that erupted in no time at all, really, and acting on feral instinct that yes, sure, every person tending to this particular scene has in their heart.

But he could have handled it better.

And for that matter, so could have Grissom.

He’s thankful he doesn’t even have to say the word, once the fight is broken Nick leaves the scene, and hours later after what little evidence remains is starting to process, as the autopsy is performed and as Grissom’s phone flies off the hook with phone calls and demands for Nick’s head, he’s finally able to find a moment to process himself, and re-arrange his own mental disarray before he calls Nick into his office.

He still doesn’t say anything as Nick slinks his way in, hands wrapped in bandages, dried tear streaks pouring from his eyes, his hair still tossed from the upper hand the unruly father had held on him. 

He sits, no,  _ falls  _ into the chair in front of Grissom’s desk, his eyes glazed over and not meeting Grissom’s own set, but his body language gives Grissom the consent for the pseudo-interrogation that neither party particularly  _ wants  _ to be a part of, but has to.

The blinds of his office are closed. He disconnects his phone. For a few moments, Grissom’s face is hardened with disappointment that might as well have set Nick in an iron maiden instead of a flimsy desk chair, but as Grissom continues to study his employee, the animosity fades, and his own rare display of empathy fills its place, only reserved for the most intimate of moments.

Even platonic ones.

“How old?” is the first and only question that Grissom asks.

Not that it matters.

It never did.

Never would. 

Never should.

“I was nine.”

He lets Nick tell the rest, in his own time, his own pace. Lets him describe to Grissom the process behind his emotions, fully understanding and acknowledging his mistake, giving him the details only as an explanation, not an excuse. 

And when all is said and done, he’s weeping. Weeping somehow harder than the sobbing man they dug up out of the earth, but Grissom senses, perhaps out of his own selfish hope that a weight had been lifted off of the man’s shoulders. Could feel him floating away, finally free from the solitude of keeping a secret for most of his life, a secret about an event that no child even has the capacity to fully comprehend, that many more have endured and have come out of it worse than Nick did. 

And he can also feel Nick floating alone. Directionless. Lost.

He almost lost him once, twice, three times now. 

He can’t lose him again. 

Grissom rises from his desk, grabs Nick by his shoulders and lifts him up--he hates that he chose to do it this way, as Nick immediately recoils, thinking he was being thrown away like the piece of waste he certainly must have felt like in this moment--but before Nick can run, Grissom catches him in the tightest hug he’s ever given, his arms wrap in a cross behind Nick’s back, one hand slides up to cup the back of his head, cradle it into his shoulder as Nick’s crying gets somehow even heavier, making sounds that no human should ever have to make or hear.

Grissom’s glasses fog up, his eyes fill with their own reservoir of water. He knows Nick is scared of what’s to come out of the incident at the scene, scared of what is going to happen to the young child, scared of his own damn reflection.

And Grissom is too, but he knows Nick needs him now more than anything, now more than anytime before, and effectively has to once again, pull him out of his own grave.

“Nicky, my boy…” Grissom’s voice is barely a whisper. “You are the strongest, bravest, most resilient son I could ever ask for. I am  _ so proud  _ of you. No matter what happens, you  _ never forget that.”  _

He feels Nick’s head shift into a tight nod--or perhaps it’s another heaving of sobs as Grissom continues the stream of affirmations as they stand in the eye of a hurricane that might threaten to tease them apart, to threaten Nick’s professional life and by extension, Grissom’s too, but no matter the storm, no matter what ghosts chase Nick through the rest of his life and beyond, they’ll stand here, in this moment,  _ together.  _


End file.
